In today's increasingly connected world, it is often hard to manage interruptions. For example, a busy manager may send an e-mail or instant message (IM) to an employee on Friday, but instead of receiving an unnecessary update over the weekend, he may only want an update on Monday. To alleviate this problem, a way is needed to better manage the interruptions caused by feedback to sent mails, i.e., to ensure that the response time preference of the sender is respected. There are no existing solutions that address this problem.
For exemplary purposes, two scenarios are provided that are illustrative of this issue. In one example, Pat, who is a senior manager of a large organization with many employees, already receives too many electronic messages. Pat would like to send a message to his team on Friday, but he wishes to receive responses only on Monday. Pat wants to keep his inbox relatively clear over the weekend because he needs to concentrate on other work. Unfortunately, if he wants to guarantee that no one will respond to him before Monday, he cannot send the e-mail on Friday. Using his current messaging system, there is no way for Pat to ensure that the specified message will not have a response before a certain time.
In another scenario, Barry is a project manager and is looking after a rather complex project. Barry sends an e-mail to a colleague about a forthcoming milestone, but he does not want a response until after the milestone is reached. Unfortunately, the recipients sometimes respond, making trawling through e-mails more time-consuming. Some recipients respond with ineffectual messages, such as, “OK—I will update you after the milestone,” that clog up Barry's inbox. There is no way for Barry, using his current messaging system, to ensure that the specified message will not have a response before a certain time.